Microsoft Zune

I got myself a Microsoft Zune for my birthday. I have to say, though its pretty big compared to that iPOD Nano, its still very slick and nice looking. It came with a whooping 30GB of space, and with management software to put songs, videos and pictures on your Zune. I was able to fit 100+ songs, and 20+ hours of videos in under 3.2GB!!! I'm also able to transfer full-length DVD movies to my Zune!!!

I got myself the Black Zune, for i didn't really like the Brown one, and the White one was pretty cool, but i just had to get Black. I must admit though, that i had some problems installing the software it came with. I apparently didn't have the correct Operating system on my PC to install it on. My PC is barely a year old, and it uses Windows XP Media Center 2002 edition with Service Pack 2. But apparently Media Center 2002 edition was too old to support the software. Just as a heads up, here's the system requirements:

The following hardware and software are required in order to use Zune software:

Component	Minimum Requirements
Operating system	Microsoft© Windows© Vista, Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional SP2, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2, or Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with KB900325 (Rollup Update 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005). In addition, go to Windows Update and install any high-priority updates that are available for your computer. Zune software is not currently supported on Windows XP Professional x64 Edition or Windows Server.
Processor	500 megahertz (MHz) processor or better (1.5-gigahertz (GHz) or higher for video)
RAM	256 megabytes (MB) (512 MB or higher for video playback)
Free hard disk space	200 MB or better
Optical drive	CD or DVD drive for audio playback (CD-R or CD-RW drive for burning)
Network	Internet access (high-speed recommended)
Video card	Video card with 32 MB of RAM (video RAM or VRAM) or better (64 MB VRAM and Microsoft© DirectXE 9.0b or later for video) For more information about DirectX, see the Microsoft DirectX Web site.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) interface	USB 1.1 (USB 2.0 or better for faster synchronization)
Internet browser	Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or later (Internet Explorer 7 recommended)

But once i did finally get the software up and running, everything was smooth sailing from there. The software is extremely easy to use, just drag and drop the songs and videos you want into your Zune Library, then you can organize playlist, then just drag and drop into your Zune.


I was also able to fit full-length movies on my Zune. In Fact, i was able to fit all 10+ hours of Band of Brothers, Starship Troopers 1 & 2, Tremors, Doom, and Full Metal Jacket into my Zune, and all of that only took about 3.2GB out of the 30GB (i also had about 100+ songs already on the Zune...most of which was mainly GreenDay).

The way i was able to fit full length movies on my Zune took a few steps, and is somewhat time consuming, so i'd advise to try this on a free weekend. First, i rip the DVD using DVD Shrink 3.2 (which you can download for free on the web). From there you can edit the movie, cutting out the ending credits or parts that you just don't like, then you backup the movie to your hard-drive as .VOB files. From there, i downloaded PSP Video 9 (which can be downloaded for free too) and converted the .VOB files into .MPEG4 files (for the Zune device is not compatible to .VOB, and those must be converter to .MPEG4 or any other windows media supported format such as wmv). Then once you have converter the .VOB files to .MPEG4 files, all you have to do is add those files to your Zune Library, then drag and drop it into your Zune device. The conversions and and ripping in the end can compress a normal movie(5GB) to a mere (400MB)


NOTE: If you want a more descriptive guide to transferring a full length DVD to your Zune device, send me a PM



All in all, the Zune is a amazing device, with its large screen perfect for watching videos, to its built in wifi and FM radio tuner. Also because of the fact that the Zune is expected to have games in the future is a big 1up in my opinion